Cervical esophagostomy was performed in 237 patients with cancer of the head and neck. All of the patients had swallowing difficulties from either the tumor or its treatment and required extra-oral feeding. We believe this method has several advantages over other techniques. The operation can be performed as a single procedure or in conjunction with tumor resection. Cervical esophagostomy cannot be used in patients with obstruction of the thoracic esophagus or lower gastrointestinal tract. Knowledge of important anatomic relationships makes the operation easy to perform and we have had few complications and no deaths from its use.